ANNE FEVERSHAM

BY
J. C. SNAITH

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1914

Copyright, 1914, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Published in England as “The Great Age”

Printed in the United States of America

ANNE FEVERSHAM

CHAPTER I

A DISTINGUISHED member of the Lord Chamberlain’s company, Mr. William Shakespeare by name, had entered the shop of a tailor in the town of Nottingham. This popular and respected actor and playwright was about thirty-five years of age. Of middle height, he had the compact figure of one in the prime of a vigorous manhood. His hair was worn rather long, but his beard, inclining to red in color, was trim and close. His dress was plainer than is the rule with those who follow his calling. Indeed at a first glance he had less of the look of an actor than of a shrewd, cautious man of affairs who has prospered in trade. Close observation might have amended this estimate. There was a vivid pallor about the face, and the somber eyes, slow-burning and deep-set, were like a smoldering fire. Even when the mobile features were in repose, which was seldom the case, the whole effect of the countenance was vital and arresting.

“That is a very choice coffin-cloth you have there, Master Tidey.”

The manner of the actor and playwright was simplicity itself. There was not a suspicion of affectation in it. He passed his fingers over the rich pall that lay on the tailor’s knee. Upon the hem of the cloth an armorial device was being stitched by the hand of a master craftsman.

“Yes, it is Master Shakespeare,” said the tailor gravely. “Choice enough, choice enough.”

“Who is the happy man?”

“A young gentleman who lies in the Castle yonder. He is to have his head cut off a Tuesday by order of the Queen.”

A look of startled interest came into the eyes of the player. “Is that so, Master Tidey? And young, you say, and gentle, too?”

“Aye, young enough. But two or three and twenty—by all accounts a very fair and deliver young man.”

“It seems a pity,” said the player, “a mortal pity, for a man to die by the ax in the heat of his youth. And yet ’tis better to die by the ax than by the string. It is at least a gentleman’s death the Queen is giving him,” he added grimly.

“As you say,” the tailor agreed, “it is at least a gentleman’s death the Queen is giving him, and he’ll have the robe of a gentleman in which to wrap his corpse. Happen, Master Shakespeare, that in like case it is a better consideration than would fall to you and me.”

A light flashed in the somber eyes of the player. “Speak for yourself Master Tidey,” he said, with a slow, deep laugh. “Whenever I get my deliverance, by God’s grace I’ll have the robe of a gentleman to cover me. Unless”—the light in the somber eyes was so intense that they shone almost black—“unless they let the reason out, and then there’s no warrant for any man’s exit. But what of this poor young man? How comes he to this?”

The tailor lowered his voice to a whisper. It was as if he feared to be overheard. “They do say ’a has plotted with the Papishers, who are always contriving against the Queen.”

“What’s the name of the unlucky youth?”

“His name is Mr. Gervase Heriot.”

“Mr. Gervase Heriot! He is a kinsman of my Lord Southampton.” A look of keen pity came upon the player’s face. “I know the lad well enough. He sat on our stage at The Globe less than two months ago. An open, cheerful youth incapable of plotting against aught save a flask of canaries, if I’m any judge of nature. Poor young man. Master Tidey, this is a very tragic matter.”

“Sad enough, Master Shakespeare, sad enough,” said the tailor, stitching busily at the coffin-cloth.

The actor passed a delicately shaped hand, the hand of a poet, across his face. “More than once I have marked the lad as he sat in the playhouse,” he said. “’A was a proper neat youth. ’A had a subtle tongue and a very flaming eye. ’A was german-cousin to Perseus, him that bestrid the winged horse. And now—with the taste of milk yet on his lips!” The player ceased abruptly, as if overcome by a surge of feeling. For a time he was silent. The tragic end of a youth of bright promise appeared to weigh upon him sorely.

Master Nicholas Tidey, whose skill with the needle and shears had spread far and wide over the midland counties, was, like the player, a Stratford man. In a rather shamefaced way, the tailor was a little inclined to be proud of his fellow-townsman. To be sure his calling was hardly that of a Christian. On occasion his speech was apt to be a little disorderly, it even verged upon the fantastical, but Master Tidey was bound to admit that there must be something in the fellow. For one thing, rumor had it that he had recently bought New Place, the largest house in his native town. Such a fact spoke for itself, even if a wise man was inclined to discount the glowing reports of the play-actor’s ever-growing success which reached him continually from London. But, even as far back in the world’s history as the age of Elizabeth, “Nothing succeeds like success” was a maxim known to the philosophers.

“They do tell me, Master Shakespeare,” said the tailor, “that some of these harlotry pieces of yours have been approved by the Queen.”

The playwright could not help smiling a little at a certain uneasiness which was apparent in the tone of his friend, in spite of the fact that that honest man tried very hard to conceal it. “If I said they had not, Master Tidey,” he answered, with dry modesty, “I might be speaking less than I know. On the other hand, if I said that they had, a needy writer for the stage might be claiming more than becomes the least of her Majesty’s servants.”

Master Tidey looked a little incredulous. “They do tell me, Master Shakespeare, that you make them out of your own head entirely. Master Burbage, who was here an hour ago to have new points set in his hose, swore it was so, by the beard of the prophet—facetiously, as I think. But I can hardly believe it, Master Shakespeare, not out of your own head, and that’s the fact. Why, I mind the time you was a little graceless runnion that used to play truant from Stratford Free School. Many’s the time I’ve seen you come sliding down Short Hill of a winter’s morning in your blue short coat, with your books falling out o’ your satchel as you dangled it behind you, and generally twenty minutes late for the muster. You were always a sharp lad, Master Shakespeare, I’m bound to say that although somewhat idly given, but I never thought you’d have had wit enough to make one of these interludes all out of your own head like book-learned men who have been bred at college.”

“It seems unlikely enough I grant you,” said the player discreetly. “And my pieces, such as they are, don’t compare of course with those of some I could mention—there is a young fellow by the name of Ben Jonson, and one of these days you’ll be able to contrive a whole garment for the best of us out of his sleeve ruffles. But I sometimes think, Master Tidey, when of an evening I’ve had a glass o’ clear spring water with a carroway-seed in it at the Mermaid Tavern, that if only he had had the singular good fortune to have been bred at Oxford or Cambridge, the world might one day have heard of William Shakespeare—but no matter! It will all be the same a hundred years hence.” The player laughed cheerfully. “We shall all be forgotten, and our interludes too, long before then.”

“Yes, Master Shakespeare, there can be no doubt about that,” said the tailor heartily. “And personally I thank God for it. I don’t hold with these masks and gallimaufries and such-like cloaks for wantonness, saving your presence. Still the Queen does, as I understand, and although I am much surprised at her, that’s a great matter. And that being the case I am bound to admit that for one who left the Stratford Free School at the age of thirteen with no more book-knowledge in his numskull than Daddy Jenkins could put there with his ferrule, and if, as I say, the Queen approves your interludes, and they are entirely out of your own head, as Master Burbage swears they are by the beard of the prophet—why, I am bound to admit that you bring little or no discredit upon your native parish.”

“You pay me a high compliment, Master Tidey,” said the actor. “And fain would I deserve it. But you will grieve to learn, I am sure, that the Queen has commanded the Lord Chamberlain’s servants to her palace at Richmond on the tenth of July, and moreover she desires a new piece from the pen of the least of them all. It would seem that, for some reason at present obscure, her Grace in her bounty is pleased to approve the nonsensical comedy of “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” which, between ourselves, is by no means the brightest of the performances from the hand of the rustical clown in question.”

In spite of the strictness of his tenets, Master Tidey could not forbear to be impressed. “You are indeed coming to great honors now,” said the tailor, whose worldly wisdom appeared to be in danger of overriding his high principles. “And it is not for me to deny that you have a talent—of a kind that is, Master Shakespeare. But at least, as you are a Stratford man like myself, I am glad to hear that there are those who think well of it. What will you put into your comedy, Master Shakespeare? Love, I presume, and all manner of wantonness?”

“Well, Master Tidey,” said the author, “since you ask the question, you can no more leave love out of a comedy than you can leave an apple out of a dumpling. Besides, it is Gloriana’s desire that I should make her a tale of love, that there should be youth in it and girlhood and high poesy—that is, if we can rise to poesy in this barren age! And it is Gloriana’s pleasure that it shall be played before her of a summer’s afternoon under the greenwood in Richmond Park.”

“You will be making your fortune one of these days, Master Shakespeare,” said the tailor, upon the verge of awe.

“That is as may be, Master Tidey. At least I would ask nothing better than to quit the stage. A man’s dignity and a player’s calling don’t ride well together. In the meantime must I tease my five wits to devise a play for Gloriana. And it must be made, alas! by the tenth of July.”

“I’d rather you had to do it than had I,” said the tailor, with a sigh of relief, as he took up the needle and shears.

By now the player was subdued to the process of thought, and was twisting his short beard between his thumb and forefinger. The eyes were veiled almost like those of a man in a trance. “I’ve a mind to put Robin Hood in it,” he said. “The bold outlaw of Sherwood and his merry men. Many’s the time they have come from the neighboring greenwood into this famous old town of Nottingham.”

Before, however, the actor could pursue this pleasant idea, there arose a sharp clatter of hoofs on the cobblestones outside the tailor’s door, and a minute afterwards a personage entered the shop who at once turned his thoughts into a new direction.

CHAPTER II

THE personage was a young woman of some eighteen years, breathing youth and its sorcery in every line. She was tall, well grown, of a beauty that was remarkable. She stepped with a lithe grace, a springing freedom that Atalanta would not have disdained. Her long quilted riding-coat was the last cry of the fashion, and on the left hand she wore a large hawking-gauntlet. But that which at once caught the eye both of the tailor and of the player, and made the charming figure still more memorable, was an audacious pair of leather breeches. These clothed her nether limbs, and below them were a long pair of boots of untanned leather.

Now Master Tidey it was who had built this fine pair of hawking-breeches to the explicit order of the wearer, yet even he could hardly forbear to be scandalized when he marked its effect. As for the player—but he had a larger, a more liberal, a more sophisticated mind. For one thing he had seen the fine ladies of the Court ride out hawking in this guise. To be sure he had heard some very salutary criticism of a style of dress that was creeping into vogue among the highest in the land, but he was not of those who condemned it. Mr. William Shakespeare, unlike his friend Nicholas Tidey, betrayed not the least surprise at this young woman’s appearance. Certainly his curiosity was fully aroused, but perhaps that was less on account of the garment itself than because of the look of its wearer.

In point of fact, Mr. William Shakespeare, whose eye was very sure in such matters, was charmed by the spectacle. Swiftly he moved aside, in order that this young gentlewoman might proceed to the tailor’s counter. Moreover, as he performed this polite action he removed his hat with a touch of gallantry, as became an acquaintance with courts.

“Good Master Tailor,” said the wearer of the garment, with an air so fine as to delight Mr. William Shakespeare still more, “I make you my compliments upon these hawking-breeches you have been so good as to devise for me. They are a little tight around the left knee, otherwise they do excellently well. I make you my compliments upon them, Master Tailor, and have the goodness to devise me a second pair in every particular as the first.”

Master Tidey bowed obsequiously. “I attend your pleasure, madam,” he said.

The young woman then drew off a glove, and with some little difficulty was able to produce a purse from the recesses of her attire. “What is your charge, friend, for this excellent garment, which gives me such ease in the saddle that from this day I am minded to wear no other style of habiliment.”

“Two angels, if it please you, madam.”

“Here be four, my friend.”

She opened the purse and counted out in gold pieces twice the sum that was asked.

“Good Master Tailor,” she said, “you have right excellent craft and your garment pleases me. And if I must speak the truth, I had never learned until this day what ease and freedom comes of the wearing of galligaskins.”

She used such a grave air, as of one expressing a most serious and private thought, that Mr. William Shakespeare, who all this time had been regarding her covertly, although taking care to appear lost in contemplation of the coffin-cloth the tailor had now discarded, could not forbear from giving forth a dry, stealthy chuckle.

Mistress Anne Feversham half turned for the purpose of visiting such a presumption with an imperious eye. The clear gaze said as plainly as woman could express it: “And who, pray, are you, sir? Whoever you are I’ll thank you to be pretty careful.”

Howbeit, in the matter of looking down this presumptuous individual, young Mistress Anne Feversham, it seemed, had undertaken a task a little beyond her present powers. There was hardly one among the burgesses of the town who could have sustained that gaze. But with this quiet and mild-looking individual, whose coat and sword were so modest, it was a different matter.

The impact of the proud eyes of Mistress Insolence was met with perfect composure. Moreover, there was just a suspicion of laughter. In the opinion of the lady there was no ground for levity. Yet it was almost as if this person, whose dress was so little pretentious as to be hardly that of a gentleman, was daring to say in his heart, “Madam, think not ill of me if I confess that, far from being abashed by your air, I am rather amused by it.”

That at least was the quick and sensitive feminine interpretation of the subtle face whose owner was hardly entitled to such a look of arch and humorous self-confidence. Mistress Anne Feversham felt a slight wound in her dignity. Who, pray, was this impertinent?

By some means best known to himself, Mr. William Shakespeare appeared to read the thoughts of the lady. At least the sly smile that had crept into those somber but wonderful eyes had deepened to a look of roguery. Mistress Anne grew crimson; the disdainful head went up; she bit her lip; and then realizing that such a display of embarrassment was wholly unworthy of the daughter of the Constable of Nottingham Castle, the pride of youth chastened her so sorely that she turned her back abruptly on the cause of her defeat.

Soon, however, the ever-abiding sense of place and power came to her aid and she was able to command herself sufficiently to address the tailor.

“I see the town is full of play-acting rogues,” she said. “Whence do they come?”

“From London, madam, I believe,” said Master Tidey, without venturing to look in the direction of his friend.

“I am afraid they are a saucy-looking crew. My groom”—perhaps it was well that the voice of Mistress Anne did not reach the ears of the haughty young falconer who was taking charge of her horse at the tailor’s door—“my groom pointed them out to me as I passed the Moot Hall. As soon as I return to the Castle I will inform my father the Constable, and I will see if they cannot be put in the stocks, which to my mind is where they belong.”

As became the shrewd man he was, Master Nicholas Tidey made no reply. He was content to nod his head gravely, as if he tacitly approved, while at the same time he contrived to keep a tail of an eye upon his distinguished friend. There might or there might not have been a ghost of a smile upon that prim and cautious mouth.

Indeed, very wisely, Master Tidey left it to the play-actor himself to try a fall with such a formidable adversary. And this that daring individual proceeded to do in a manner quite cool and leisurely, and yet with a vastly considered air. In his eye, it was true, there was a suspicion of something far other than gravity. That of course was regrettable; but it was undoubtedly there.

Mr. William Shakespeare’s first act was to remove his hat with its single short cock’s feather, and then he bowed very low indeed, in the manner of one quite well aware of addressing a social superior.

“Cry you mercy, mistress,” he said, “but as one who is himself a poor actor may he ask wherein his guild has had the unhappiness to offend you?”

Mistress Anne Feversham met this effrontery with a disdain that was wonderful. Her chief concern at the moment was to show her great contempt without a descent into downright ill-breeding. But as soon as she met the somber eyes of this individual, in which a something that was rare and strange was overlaid by a subtle mockery, this natural instinct took wings and fled. In those eyes was something that hardly left her mistress of herself, in spite of her father the Constable, her young blood-horse and her incomparable pair of galligaskins.

“My father the Constable would have all play-actors whipped,” said Mistress Anne Feversham.

But her voice was not as she had intended it to be. Moreover, her father the Constable had yet to deliver himself of such an illiberal sentiment. And this graceless individual seemed to be fully aware that this was the case.

“Whipped, mistress!” His look of grave consternation did not deceive her. “You would whip a poor actor!”

“All who are actors, sir, my father would.”

“Is it conceivable?—the gentlest, the humblest, the most industrious, the most law-abiding of men!”

“My father cares not for that, sir. He says they are masterless rogues.”

“Then by my faith, mistress, that is very froward in your father.”

“He says they are the scum of taverns and alehouses and they corrupt the public mind.”

“Ods my life! how comes so crabbed a sire to have a daughter so fair, so feat, so charming!”

It began to seem hopeless for Mistress Anne to continue in such a strain of severity. For a moment she used her will in order to punish this audacity, but in the next she was trembling upon the verge of open laughter. Still the consciousness that she was no less a person than the only daughter and heiress of Sir John Feversham, the Constable of Nottingham Castle and chief justice of the forest of Sherwood, was just able to save her from that which could only have been regarded in the light of a disaster.

“I would fain inform you, mistress, there are play-actors whom even the Queen approves.”

Alas! Mistress Anne had a full share of the cynical irreverence of youth.

“I am not at all surprised to learn that, sir. I have even been told that the Queen dyes her hair.”

The effect of a speech so daring was to startle Master Tidey quite visibly. The world looks to one of his craft to have a conventional mind, and there was no doubt the times were perilous. The shears almost fell from his hand. If this was not treason, might he never sew another doublet!

The play-actor, however, was of a fiber less delicate. It was as much as Mr. William Shakespeare could do to refrain from open laughter.

“May I ask, mistress,” he said, “what is your warrant for such a grave charge against the Queen’s Majesty?”

“The warrant of my own eyes, sir. Her hair was certainly dyed when she stayed at the Castle a month since.”

“But bethink you, mistress, might it not appear less treasonable if Gloriana’s true subjects presumed her hair to be a wig?”

“Let them presume nothing, sir, but that which is the truth.”

“To so pious a resolve even a poor actor may say amen.”

Mistress Anne realized that she was no match for this man. The only hope for her dignity lay in a cool scorn of him. Suddenly the gloriously straight back was turned disdainfully. Let the greatest lady for ten miles beware how she chopped logic with a strolling actor.

“Master Tailor, I would have you devise me a second pair of these right excellent breeches, in every particular as the first, and do you have them at the Castle against the first of May.”

Master Tidey bowed low.

“Good-day to you, Master Tailor.”

Master Tidey bowed still lower with that clear and proud speech in his ears.

With chin held high, and with an arrogant, free-swinging carriage, Mistress Anne Feversham went forth of the tailor’s shop. But even then, abrupt as was the manner of her going, she had to submit to the play-actor’s leaping to the door before she could reach it herself. He opened it and held it for her with the grace and dignity of a courtier. She passed imperiously, without yielding him a glance or a “Thank you.”

A dashing young man in the livery of a falconer was holding the young blood-horse of Mistress Anne outside the tailor’s door. He was handsomely mounted on an animal similar to the one he held for his mistress. On his fist was a small falcon, hoodwinked and fessed.

Very agile was the lady in finding her way into the saddle. For all that she was not quite clever enough to defeat this incorrigible play-actor. He sprang to her stirrup while she had one foot still on the ground and hoisted her up with an address that enforced her respect, and with so grave an air of courtesy as tacitly to compel her own.

All the same she was angry. And she had sense enough to know that it was illogical to be so. Yet she swung her horse around sharply in order to give expression to her state of mind. And as the falconer, John Markham by name, confided the merlin to the accustomed wrist of his mistress, he turned back an instant to scowl at the player. It was even as if he would ask him who the devil he was, and what the devil he did there.

The player removed his hat with its single cock’s feather in a manner that was almost tenderly ironical. It had hardly been a display of Court manners of which he had been the recipient. But he was too much a man of the world to look for those everywhere. And above all here was youth in its glamour, youth in its sorcery. For the sake of a stuff so precious he would forgive a crudity greater than this.

With a sigh of delight the player stood at the tailor’s door to watch this fine pair ride very slowly and haughtily down the street. For all their air of class consciousness and their open contempt of the townspeople, which their youth alone saved from being ridiculous, they made a glorious pair in the eye of the part-proprietor of the Globe Theatre, London.

That was an eye to judge men and things as none other since the world began. Neither Mistress Anne Feversham nor the falconer was aware of that fact, and had they been aware of it they had not cared a button. All that they did know and all that they cared was that the worthy burgesses of Nottingham were stealing glances of awe and admiration at them. In a word, they were causing a sensation, and were very pleasantly alive to the fact.

Yes, undoubtedly a gallant pair. John Markham, in spite of his superior condition and rising renown, rode behind his mistress at a respectful distance of ten yards. They sat their horses with great skill and assurance. First one and then the other, as they walked them slowly down the street, would touch them gently with the spur, in order to enjoy the pleasure of showing them off in the sight of the townspeople.

The player, still standing at the tailor’s door, could not take his eyes from the spectacle. Almost wistfully, and yet in a kind of entrancement, he watched them until at last there came a turn in the street and they were lost to view. Then he went within to rejoin his scandalized friend, who to compose his mind had had recourse already to the needle and shears.

“I never saw the like o’ that,” said Master Nicholas Tidey. “It’s rare to be the quality. But that’s nothing to you, Master Shakespeare. I reckon you see it every day o’ the week.”

“It’s a fine thing, I grant you, when it rides proud in the sight of heaven,” said the player abstractedly.

“Aye, Master Shakespeare, and even when it goes afoot!” said the tailor, whose mind was more pedestrian. “It does a man good, I always think, to have a sight of the quality now and again. But as I say, Master Shakespeare, it is nothing to you who go to Court like a gentleman.”

But the part-proprietor of the Globe Theatre was not heeding the words of his friend. The light that never was on sea or land had come into those somber eyes. Suddenly his hand struck the tailor’s counter a great blow. “That is an adorable miniard,” he said. “By my soul, if Gloriana requires a comedy, here is matter for a comedy for Gloriana!”

CHAPTER III

IN the meantime, the unconscious cause of Mr. William Shakespeare’s enthusiasm was proceeding somewhat arrogantly through the streets of the town. Mistress Anne Feversham was mightily proud of herself, of her young blood-horse, of her pied merlin, above all of her brand-new hawking-breeches, which she had had the audacity to copy from two particularly dashing ladies of the Court who had accompanied the Queen on her recent visit to Nottingham.

As for John Markham, she was proud of him too. He made a fine squire. But nothing would have induced her to let him know it. None the less surely was he subdued to her purposes. A wise fellow in all things else, he was the true knight, the ready slave of his young mistress. And his young mistress was imperious.

High temper was in every clean-run line of her. It was in the eye, a thing of mist and fire, gloriously placed like that of one of Leonardo’s ladies. It was in the nose, curved like the beak of her merlin; in the delicate molding of the chin and mouth, in the slender column of the throat, in the poise of the head, in the supple assurance of the body which ruled a beast of mettle and goaded it into setting up its will for the pleasure of subduing it.

John Markham, with a head beyond his years, was passing wise for his station. He was no ordinary servant, but one high in the regard of Sir John Feversham, the Constable of Nottingham Castle, that grim pile half-a-mile off, rising sheer from its rock in the midst of the water-meadows. Learned in hawking, he was esteemed by gentle and simple for many a mile. His skill in the craft of princes had even carried his fame as far as Belvoir, under whose shadow he had been bred. He was a shrewd, a skilful, a bold young fellow, wise in all things except that he worshiped the ground upon which his young mistress trod.

That was the fault of his youth. He had been less than he was, far less, could he have attended her pleasure without dreaming of her in the long watches of the night, or desiring in his hours of madness that she should plunge into his heart the silver-hilted poniard she wore at her waist. This was her eighteenth birthday, and he was rising twenty-five. She was rich, important, beautiful, capricious. For she was the only child and heiress of the greatest man for ten miles round.

And he, who was he? Well, if the truth must be told, he was the byblow of a kitchen-wench and one of great place who had shown him not a spark of kindness. Yes, if the truth must be told—and John Markham thanked no man for telling it—born and bred under the shadow of Belvoir, given the soul and the features of a noble race, but without birth, favor or education, except that he was learned in hawking. Encased in that fine livery was a strong, tormented soul.

His young mistress never allowed him to forget that he was a servant. In her gentlest moods she would throw her words to him as if he had been a dog. She knew he was her slave, happy only in his chains, one barred by fortune from an equality she could never forgive his not being able to claim. His passive acceptance of the bar seemed to make her cruel. He was so tall, so brave, so handsome; not a man in all the county of Notts could cast a main of hawks like him. Only a month ago the Queen had praised him to his face. Yet was he like a hound that came to heel at her word, or a horse that took sugar out of her hand without hurting it. In the presence of others he could be proud enough, but in hers he was as humble as the meanest of her servants, who asks only to be allowed to wait upon her will.

At this moment, be it said, the will of Mistress Anne was making John Markham decidedly unhappy. It had done so indeed for a fortnight past. In the Queen’s train during her recent visit to Sir John, his master, at the Castle, had come the ladies of her household. Among these had been two who, not to put too fine a point upon the matter, had given Mistress Anne ideas. Brazenly enough as it had seemed to chaste minds, yet it was to be feared with the sanction of their august mistress, had they gone a-hawking in the meadows astride their horses, the nether woman arrayed in brown leather galligaskins!

Honest John Markham was not alone in his horror of so sad a spectacle. More than one graybeard had wagged over it in the buttery; more than one prim kirtle had lamented it bitterly in the hall. What were the women of England coming to, if the highest in the land—! The matter was one scarce fit for persons of delicacy. If such a practice spread, who should say to what heights ere long the vaunting spirit of woman would aspire?

Alas! the matter had not ended here. Mistress Anne, in the very insolence of daring, had seen the last word in modishness in this most perilous innovation. Nothing would content her but that she should have a pair of leather hawking-breeches for her wear. John Markham, that trusty henchman, was sent at once to Master Nicholas Tidey, the man’s tailor of Nottingham, with careful instructions from his mistress.

She was not able herself to visit that worthy, because she had been expressly forbidden by her father to pass through the town gate. Thus had the task been laid upon John Markham of haranguing the accomplished Master Tidey. And in the last resort he summoned that famous craftsman in person to the Castle, since it presently appeared that there are subtleties in the design of a pair of hawking-breeches which cannot be dealt with by third parties. Finally John it was who bore the sinister parcel into the Castle under cover of night, carrying it with his own faithful hands into the presence of the lady on the eve of the eighteenth anniversary of her birth.

Truly a very perilous innovation. Honest John did not go beyond that. Whether that other honest John, his master, from whom she derived her over-riding temper, would be content with such a moderation—well, that was a matter that the future would soon be called upon to decide.

Mistress Anne, riding slowly down the street ten yards ahead of the falconer, checking her blood-horse, Cytherea, with one hand and holding her pied merlin in the other, was a picture to haunt the young man’s dreams for many a day to come. Already she had much skill in the art he had taught her: she could bring down her bird with the best; she sat her horse like a young goddess; the galligaskins of supple brown leather—alas! that was a subject to which the honest fellow durst not lend his mind.

As they rode through the town, many a sly glance was stolen at the wearer of the brown leather galligaskins. But the expression on the face of the falconer said clearly enough: “Be wary of your gaze, my masters. There is a broken costard for any who are froward of eye.”

Nevertheless Mistress Anne made a nine days’ wonder in the ancient borough of Nottingham. Presently the town was behind them. Instead of returning straight to the Castle, they made for the open meadows all spread with blue and white and yellow crocuses, which in the spring of the year weave their vivid carpet by the banks of Trent. Soon they had come to the narrow wooden bridge that spanned the broad and deep river. John Markham’s horse, young and half-broken, suddenly took exception to the quick-flowing torrent under its feet. It swerved so sharply that it all but threw him.

Hearing the sound of the fierce scuffle, Mistress Anne looked back. She was in time to see John struggling to regain the saddle from which he had so nearly parted company. “Clumsy fellow!” she cried. “You sit your horse like a——”

While she was in the act of finding a figure of speech to meet the case, her own horse realized its opportunity. Nor was it slow to turn it to account. Cytherea made a thoroughly competent attempt to pitch her rider into the river. She just failed, it is true, but that was more because her luck was out than for any lack of honest intention.

Cytherea’s bold rider was no believer in half measures. She soon had her in hand, duly admonished her with shrewd jabs of her long spurs and came a second time within an ace of being flung into the river. Not brooking cold steel, Cytherea fought for her head like a tigress. She got her forefeet onto the low rail of the bridge. There was a desperate moment of uncertainty, in which the issue hung in the balance, and then Cytherea had to bring her forefeet down again.

“The fault is yours, John Markham,” said Cytherea’s rider. “You are, I say, a clumsy fellow. You sit your horse like a—” Again she paused to find a simile worthy of the occasion. “You sit your horse like a sack of peas.”

John did not reply, but hung his diminished head.

“Here, take the merlin,” said his mistress, and by now there was a steady light in her eyes. “And give me that whip of yours.”

But the falconer, fully conscious of his daring, summoned all his courage. “Wait till we are across the bridge, I pray you, mistress.”

“Give me your whip, sirrah. If this rude beast gets me into the river I’ll warrant she comes in herself.”

“No, mistress,” said the falconer. “I dare not. The rail is too low and the bridge is too narrow.”

“Hand it to me at once, I say!” The face of Cytherea’s wilful rider was full of menace.

Never before had the falconer dared to oppose her will, but it was almost certain death if now he obeyed it.

“Do you not hear me, sirrah?”

“You shall have it, mistress, as soon as we are across the bridge.”

There was nothing for it but to wait until they had gained the opposite bank. Once among the crocuses, the lady reined in the still mutinous Cytherea with no light hand. She then turned her unruly steed to meet that of the falconer.

“Now, sirrah!”

The gauntleted hand was held out grimly. The eyes were like stars in their dark luster; and in the center of each cheek burned a glowing crimson.

John Markham lifted the merlin from the fist of his mistress. Then he gave her the whip. There was not a drop of blood in his cheeks. His fixed, unfearing gaze had not a shade of defiance; but it was as if the upturned face almost invited that which awaited it.

“You fool!”

The whip descended sharply, but without haste, on the lithe and beautiful flanks of the astonished Cytherea. One, two, three. It was a hazardous proceeding. For more than one long minute the issue lay in doubt. But skill and high courage gained the day. The dignity of a daughter of men was vindicated at the expense of the dignity of the daughter of goddesses.

“I thank you, John Markham.”

She returned the whip to the falconer with almost an air of kindness.

CHAPTER IV

THIS was a brave thing, already out to set up its will against the world. And of the little world in which she lived her father was the center of authority. He was an august man, high in the service of the Queen. His explicit word was not lightly to be disobeyed. And it had gone forth with no uncertainty. Upon no pretext must Mistress Anne Feversham enter the town of Nottingham, which nestled close about the Castle rock.

But she was eighteen years old this day, of a head-strong blood, motherless, craving adventure. The fire in her veins was mounting high. It must have an outlet, it must find escape from within the grim precincts of that old fortress which had begun to press upon her life.

Alas! as they returned to the Castle after an hour’s larking among the crocuses, John Markham’s heart sank. He had been a party to a forbidden thing. And he knew not what pains, what penalties might overtake the charming culprit if her naughtiness came to his master’s ear. Moreover, a share of the consequences was like to fall upon himself. But the falconer was not the man to care very much about that. He would have asked nothing better than to be allowed to pay the whole of that reckoning which he knew very well was bound sooner or later to confront his young mistress.

That young woman fully realized her guilt. Yet she was far from being afraid. Indeed, as they rode back in the glow of the April sunset to the stern house which kept the old town in awe, she was like a strong-winged bird that knew already the power of its pinions. The brief and sharp battle with Cytherea, whose end had been a proper mending of manners for that unruly beast, had put her in great heart. She was keen for a further display of her powers. Never had she used her servant with such a magnanimity, never with such a humorous indulgence.

It was as if she would say to all the world: “See what a will I have. Be it known to all men it is vain for any to oppose it.”

Nevertheless John Markham was sad at heart. Out of his high devotion to her she might command him anything, but well he knew there could only be one end to this overweening mood. The galligaskins were a sore matter, although the Constable had not seen them yet. As for the visit to the town, it was neither more nor less than an open flout to his authority. John had a troubled heart as they passed through the Castle gate.

As if to confirm the falconer in his fears, Mistress Anne was informed by the porter of the lodge as they passed through the gate that the Constable desired her immediate presence in his own apartment.

“For what purpose does he seek it?” The question was asked with the impatience of a spoiled child.

“I know not, mistress,” said the porter gravely. “I do but know that when the Constable returned from his ride in the town he asked for you and left the message I have given.”

“When did Sir John return?”

“Not an hour ago, mistress.”

In the courtyard, with an air of resolute laughter, Mistress Anne yielded her horse to the falconer’s care. Unabashed, in her amazing garment, which set off her long-flanked slenderness adorably, she strode into the great house. The fine, free gait was not without a suspicion of a manly swagger, which the Queen’s ladies had also affected. Boldly and fearlessly she entered the presence of the august Sir John Feversham.

The Constable was seated alone in his dark-paneled room. It was easy to see whence came his young daughter’s handsome looks and strength of will. It was a face that few of that age could have matched for power and masculine beauty. The gray eyes had a very direct and searching quality, the forehead was lofty and ascetic; indeed the man’s whole aspect proclaimed that here was one who had learned many high secrets not only of the body, but of the soul.

This was not a man to be trifled with, and none knew that better than his daughter. But this unhappy day she was a young woman overborne by a sense of her own consequence.

“You sent for me, Sir John.” The voice was half defiance, half disdain.

“Yes, mistress, I did so.”

The tones of the Constable were a deep, slow growl. They were used in a way of such reluctance that it seemed a pain to utter them.

“Wherefore, Sir John, did you send for me?” The half-humorous tones were all of innocence.

The Constable’s reply was a grave stroking of the chin. The stern gaze began very slowly to traverse the culprit as she stood in all her sauciness, in all her defiance. Not a detail of her manners or of her attire escaped those grim eyes. “Why did I send for you? Do you venture to ask the question?”

In spite of her reckless courage the tones sent little shivers through Mistress Anne.

“Yes, Sir John, I do.” She had summoned all that she had of boldness.

“As you dare to ask the question, I will answer it.” It was as if the Constable turned over each word very carefully in his stern heart before it was born upon his grim lips. “First I would say to you, daughter, there is a long and ever-growing accompt between you and me which has begun to cry aloud for a settlement. I ask you, is it not so?”

Mistress Anne was silent. Even her strength of will had begun at last to fail before this slow-gathering vehemence. Once before, and once only, had she heard that tone in her father’s voice. Many years had passed since then, but on hearing it again the occasion suddenly came back to her, bringing with it a kind of vivid horror.

“Is it not so, I ask you?”

The tone was that of a judge.

“Daily have I marked a growing frowardness, daily have I marked a higher measure of your impudency.” The careful words had no unkindness. “It is but a week since these ears heard you mock at the color of the hair of the Queen’s most gracious majesty. Is it not so?”

Mistress Anne had no wish to deny that.

“And now to-day do I find you tricked out in a manner whose wicked unseemliness passes all belief. Furthermore, in open defiance of my command, you have entered the town. Is it not so?”

The culprit had no word now. The imperious valor was routed utterly.

“I do fear me,” said the Constable, “you are in the toils of a disease which admits only of the sharpest remedy. Week by week have I remarked an ever-growing sauciness. It is a malady which in man or woman, horse or hound, can only be met in one way.”

The Constable rose slowly from his chair. He was a tall, powerful man, and very formidable and even terrible he looked. He took down a heavy hunting-whip which hung from a nail on the wall. His daughter had not imagination enough to be terrified easily. Moreover for her years she had a particularly resolute will. It was this that an imminent peril restored to her.

“I will not be beaten,” she said, with proud defiance. “This day I am eighteen years old. This day I am a woman, and being a woman I will do in all things as it pleases me.”

The Constable ran the long whip through his fingers. “Oh and soh, mistress,” said he, “this day you claim the estate of womanhood. And having come to that high condition you put forth a modest claim to do in all things as you would. Well, I am bound to say I have heard that a number of the women of the present age have these froward ideas. But it is new to me that there are any so vain as to practice them.”

“Wherefore should they not, Sir John?” The clear and brave eyes of his daughter were fixed on his own. “Is it not that in all things a woman is the equal of a man, as the Queen herself has shown, always except in those wherein she is a man’s superior?”

Again the Constable caressed the whip as though he loved it. “These be very perilous ideas,” he said. “I had not thought this canker had bit so deep. Of all the diseases that afflict our sorry age I believe there is none so vile as that which leads a young gentlewoman of careful and modest nurture to speeches of such an idle vanity. As I am a Christian man I can hardly believe my ears.”

“Sir John, it is the truth I speak. And has not the Queen herself approved it?”

“Nay, mistress, I would have you use that name more modestly,” said the Constable. But now in his eyes was a light that turned her cold.

Very gently the great thong was being shaken out. The long and cruel length was uncoiling itself like that of a serpent, so that now it lay crouching in wait among the rushes of the floor.

“I will not be beaten,” was all that Anne could gasp. “I am this day a woman.”

With a sudden chill of despair she knew that she was helpless. And if she had not known, in the very next instant that cruel fact would have been revealed to her. With a surprising dexterous swiftness for which she was not prepared, the slender wrist was twisted in a lock so cunning that to struggle would be to break the arm.

“As I am a Christian man it is my duty to cut away so damnable a heresy.” The sharp, hissing words came through shut teeth.

The defenceless form was held at arm’s length. In the implacable eyes of the Constable was the sinister fanaticism which is not afraid to wound itself.

CHAPTER V

“OH, mistress!”

A voice that had music in it sounded from the top of the high wall.

Anne had spent a dreadful night of pain and misery in one of the milder of the Castle dungeons. That is to say, it was above the ground. Also it was free of vermin, it was tolerably well lit, and was provided with a small inclosed yard open to the sky, but surrounded by a high wall garnished with spikes. Her first night of womanhood had been of a bitterness she had not thought it possible to know. There had only been a crust of bread, a jug of water and a bare pallet to assuage her tears. She had crept out of her cell in the darkness, and at last, quite exhausted, had fallen asleep under the April stars, with but a slab of icy stone to ease her hurts.

But now the dawn was come, and from far overhead a charming voice saluted her waking ears.

She looked up. A fair head crowned with morning was thrust between the close-set spikes. A young man with the bravest eyes in the world was gazing down compassionately upon her.

“Oh, mistress!”

Almost involuntarily she drew the cloak which had been given her the closer about her aches. But it was not possible to conceal her pathetic, her terrible distress.

“Oh, mistress!”

For the third time the charming voice saluted her ears, not mockingly, not unkindly, not even curiously. In it was a gentleness, a subtle power of sympathy that, do as she would, started her tears anew. She drew the cloak closer about her shoulders, as if by so doing she could conceal the fact that she had been used very grievously.

“You have been a-weeping, mistress.”

It was idle to deny a fact so plain.

Yesterday she would have met this boldness in a very different way. But that was past. In one long night of intolerable anguish her very nature had suffered a change.

“For why do you weep, mistress?”

Again was the voice like music. She could not forbear to look up into the dawn, which framed with its golden rose a fair head and a pair of brave, honest and gentle eyes.

“Is it for a grievous fault? Nay, but I am sure it is not.”

The tone was all kindness, all concern. Besides, there was some strange magic in it that had never sounded in her ears until that hour.

“Never tell me, mistress, that you are to have your head cut off on Tuesday by order of the Queen.”

The words were spoken in a manner almost whimsical. But as, startled and perhaps a little terrified, she gazed up to meet those eyes she suddenly saw that unutterable things lay behind their laughter.

The words, the look seemed almost to sicken her. And then like a strong wine a thrill of compassion ran in her veins. She rose to her feet unsteadily. Her body was so weak that she had to lean it against the wall. A thousand intolerable aches returned. She opened her lips to speak, but her voice was mute.

Looking down upon her distress, the eyes of the young man were as full of compassion as her own. The face of the girl was stained and swollen with tears; she could hardly check a groan when she moved; the cloak slipping from her shoulders revealed under the torn bodice the cruel marks of the whip.

“Oh, mistress!” The voice was tender as the missel-thrush. “What was your fault that this should have been done to you? But whatever it was, sweet mistress, you have had savage payment.”

Even as she hid her own she knew that the gentle eyes were brimming with pity.

But what were these slight aches of hers in the comparison with his own grim pass? On Tuesday he was to have his head cut off by order of the Queen. Suddenly a wild flood of anguish surged at her heart. Could such a thing be under the light of heaven? He so fair, so kind, with the fire of youth in his eyes, must the rich and glad life be torn from him in a manner so unspeakable within a space of four short days?

Again she sought to speak. This time words came; at first few and fitful, but warm from a heart all broken with pity. “They will kill you on Tuesday?” she said.

The horror that ran like ice in her veins thrilled in her voice.

“Yes, mistress. The Queen has signed the warrant. And I have done as little to deserve death as this fair April morning that I cannot bear to lose. But no matter. I have had three-and-twenty years of this golden life, so I have no ground of complaint.”

His courage spoke to her like a noble action.

“For why will they kill you?” Her heart was choking her.

“They say I was concerned with Money the Papist in the Woodgate House plot against the Queen’s life. Two subtle knaves have sworn it, but as I desire to go to heaven I am an entirely innocent man.”

She never doubted him. It was impossible to doubt such eyes, such a voice, such a noble bearing.

“I know not Money nor Woodgate House, and so far from desiring the life of the Queen I am the faithfullest if I am also the least of her Majesty’s servants.”

“Oh, it must not be!” she cried in a kind of passion.

“There is no means to prevent it,” said the young man. “The judges would not hear my book oath. But I think my peace is made with God. I am already composed for the scaffold, as I hope and believe, although it is bitterly sore to me to leave a world such as this. Yet if I complain I shall be unworthy of my twenty-three years of glorious life. But tell me, mistress, of your own case. What have you done that they should use you so cruelly? It cuts me to the soul to see you like this.”

But she could give no heed now to her own pains. Her mind was filled with horror, with a rage of pity. His bearing was so noble, so full of an instant tenderness, and in four brief days he must die by the ax in the pride and splendor of his youth.

“Oh, I cannot bear it,” she cried. “I cannot think of you as at the point of death.”

The potent wine of youth in her own veins rendered the thought intolerable. Such a rush of anguish came upon her young heart as made even the long miseries of the night seem of no account.

“No, no, it cannot be. I must speak to my father.”

“Pray, who is your father, mistress?”

“My father is Sir John Feversham, the Constable of this Castle.”

“Alas! mistress, it is he who read to me the Queen’s warrant. He of all men cannot help me, for it is he who is pledged to do the Queen’s will.”

She who yesterday had ventured to proclaim herself the equal of all men was now shaken with a storm of weeping. “I will go myself to the Queen and swear to her your innocence.”

“Alas! mistress, there is no time. Besides, she would not heed you. A subtle enemy has done his work, and I have given up all hope of life. But by God’s grace on Tuesday I am determined to die well.”

Her sorrow for this brave man was a thing to see. The proud heart was wrung with a distress that her own cruel suffering may have rendered more poignant. Yesterday, in the hour of her shallow arrogance, compassion for his fate might have irked her less. But since then she had known the dark night of the soul. Something seemed to have broken inside her heart. Henceforward in her plastic woman’s nature would be a subtle kinship with all great suffering, since she herself had known it.

“Is there naught I may do to save you?”

“There is nothing, mistress. Yet I love you for your pitiful heart, and I’ll promise you that on Tuesday I’ll walk the firmer for it. But do not consider me, I pray you. I do not think I am unhappy. I would that you were not, sweet mistress. Tell me why you have been used so cruelly?”

His voice was grave and beguiling, like one whose soul has deep places in it. In despite of the slow agony of her tears she had no choice but to heed it. There was in his tender speech a quality that melted her resolve as though it had been but a flake of snow.

“Tell me, sweet mistress, I pray you.”

How could she tell him of her frowardness? How could she tell him of the setting up of her stubborn will and of the grievous fashion of its breaking? How could she tell him that in a single night she was cured forever of the folly of holding herself other than she was?

But his gentle insistence was beyond her power to put off.

“I have been beaten,” she said with utter humility. “And all that has been done to me is no more than my merit.”

It was the elemental woman breaking from the soul that yesterday was so vainglorious. The young man looking upon her from his precarious coign felt his heart leap to her in her abasement. In the delicacy of her youth she was the fairest thing upon which ever he had set his eyes. It hurt him keener than his own fate that a beauty so rare should, whatever its faults, have been chastened so cruelly.

All that there was of chivalry in his tender soul went out to her in her desolation. In his three-and-twenty years of life he had never known love, but by God’s grace was it given that he would not have to die without tasting the rarest of all mortal experiences.

“Mistress”—his heart leaped in his throat so that he could hardly breathe—“Give me your name, sweet mistress, and I will promise as God is in His heaven that on Tuesday morning when Gervase Heriot comes to die by the ax he shall pass with your name upon his lips.”

Like wells of soft light her eyes shone up to him. “My name is Anne,” she said, with a simplicity that yesterday had not been hers.

“Mistress Anne, will you pray for me when I am passing?”

He could not hear her answer, yet he knew what it was.

“God keep you, sweet mistress! God keep you forever! I will bear your name on my lips through all the wide fields of eternity.”

These high-vaunting words were his last. No longer could he keep his precarious hold on the top of the wall. The strain on arms and knees was too much. Suddenly the eyes so full of courage and pity were lost to her.

Anne was left to reel against the wall of her prison, shaken with an anguish more terrible than any the long night had known.

CHAPTER VI

GERVASE HERIOT had entered upon the last hours of his life. It was arranged that he should die at eight o’clock of the April morning. He lay in his cell during the watches of the night that was to be his last upon earth, with every sense a-stretch. Try as he would—and God only could know how he had fought during these last weeks for self-mastery—he could not subdue the insurgency of ardent blood, the intense desire to live.

He was too young for death. He loved the sun, the blue sky, the green grass, the birds in the trees, the spring flowers, the abundant, sweet-smelling earth. He loved his fellow-men. They amused and interested him. He adored the beauty of women. His ears were attuned to delicate harmonies of sound, his eyes were ravished by feasts of color.

The world, that wonderful assemblance of things visible, entranced him in its glad, mysterious majesty. There was the soul of a poet in a frame all a-quiver with youth. As he lay in his cell in the darkness, tossing feverishly upon his pallet through the slow hours, he could not bear the thought that all too soon he would see the sun rise for the last time.

It drove him nearly mad to think that he must leave it all, that his brief sojourn upon the fair and noble earth which he loved so passionately was at an end. He was too strong of blood for such a death. With all the force of his will had he striven to compose himself. Many prayers had he addressed to God that it might be given to him to meet his fate with the high dignity that was the due of his manhood. But as now he lay shuddering in the darkness, do as he would he could not bring his mind to accept the end. Times and again he pressed his wild eyes to his pallet with a half-strangled moan of despair.

The fact that he was an entirely innocent man did nothing to console him. Indeed, had he been guilty, death had been less hard to bear. But coming to him in this arbitrary, unjust guise, its cruel causelessness set his every fiber in revolt.

Faint sounds began to creep through the night. All too soon his quivering senses caught them. Subtle as they were, he knew them at once for the noise of hammers upon wood. O God! they were setting up the scaffold in the courtyard. In spite of the strength he had won in these last few weeks he rolled off the pallet onto his knees and began to pray wildly. A fever shook his mind. His new-found strength was leaving him. Death—and such a death!—was a thing he did not know how to meet. A grim terror took hold of him.

And then a thing happened to him which shook the central forces of his being.

Suddenly he saw the face of Anne. He saw it all wan and swollen with tears. And as he looked he saw the eyes grow starlike and great with their compassion. And then he remembered his vaunt to her that he would walk firmly in his last hour, and that her name should be upon his lips. Her image was hardly more than that of a mortal daughter of men; but that which had sprung from her own bruised spirit, which looked out of her eyes as now he saw them in the darkness, was the only evidence he had of the Eternal. Some immortal essence had fused her heart as so humbly and so pitifully she had looked up to him. Through those eyes he had seen God.

Such a thought had the power to offer a measure of ease to his torments. The dreadful tumult began to grow less. Those eyes were as stars in that gross darkness. No longer was he afraid. A strange peace had begun to bear him upon its wings.

No longer had he cause to fear the noise of the hammers. Let the morning break. Let death come when it would. His fainting spirit had now a manifestation to which to cling. He would walk to the scaffold with this noble image in his heart, and it should accompany him forever in his wanderings through the wide fields of eternity.

He crept back to his pallet, and stretched out his fever-racked limbs to their full length. A profound peace was enfolding him. If only death could come now!

Long he lay thus, and as he lay he strained his eyes to catch the first faint light of the dawn. Would it never arrive? All his fear now was lest this new strength should flee as suddenly as it had been given. But no!—the ineffable spirit that had entered into him would continue through all eternity to bear his soul.

At last and quite suddenly a more instant sound began to mingle with the distant noise of the hammers. A key was grating in the lock of the door. Yes, his hour was here at last and he had not known it. With a feeling akin to relief he sat up on his pallet.

He heard the door creak gently. It then came open with so little sound as to thrill him with surprise. A faint thread of light gleamed fitfully. But whoever was the visitant, he was accompanied by a silence so profound as to fill Gervase Heriot with wonder. It was not thus that his jailers had been wont to visit him.

“Mr. Heriot.”

The name was breathed rather than spoken. There was a curious familiarity in the voice as it stole through the darkness. His heart seemed to stop beating.

He tried to answer, but could not.

“Mr. Heriot.”

Beyond the faint rays of a half-shuttered lantern was the outline of a dark form.

“Mr. Heriot.”

His name was being breathed in his ears. A hand had touched him.

“Oh, it is you!” were the first words his tongue could find.

“Do not speak,” whispered Anne Feversham. “Do not make a sound. But if you would live follow close without a question.”

He rose from his pallet unsteadily. He was utterly bewildered and very weak from many vigils. But already the lantern had begun to move away from him, and it was a talisman that had the power to draw him after it.

Almost before he was aware of what he did he realized that he was beyond the door of his cell.

“Please wait while I lock the door again,” whispered his deliverer, “so that they may not know too soon.”

Her deliberation, her calmness filled him with wonder.

Step by step they groped their way along a very narrow corridor that smelled close and evil. The damp glistened from the walls in the light of the lantern.

With infinite caution they made their way to the end of the long passage. And as they neared its end there arose the sound of a man snoring heavily. A jailer was fast asleep on a low stool that had been placed just within the outer door of the prison. He was a gross-looking fellow, and his large legs were stretched out to the full, barring completely the narrow way.

They used great caution in striding over these legs lest they should wake their owner. When they had safely cleared this obstacle Anne gave Gervase the lantern, and also a poniard from a belt which she wore round her waist. “I am going to replace the keys in his girdle,” she whispered resolutely. “I do not think he will wake; a powder has been shaken into his posset. But should you see him rousing himself, plunge the dagger into his heart. I have not the courage to do it myself.”

With a delicate deftness, with a cool precision that was remarkable, Anne reattached the keys to the girdle of the sleeping man. He did not so much as stir in his sleep.

“Now!” she whispered.

In the next moment they had crept noiselessly through the unbarred outer door. The cool morning air rushed upon them. They felt the delicious green turf under their feet.

For all that the shrewd air played about the condemned man’s temples, for all that the soft grass was under him, for all that a young moon and a sky of faint stars was over his head, he could hardly believe he was alive, or if alive could hardly realize he was broad awake.

Less than a hundred yards away, round an angle of the great building, the hammers were still mutilating the peace of the night. As Gervase and Anne stood to listen, not knowing what to do next and uncertain of the way to go, since peril hemmed them in on every side, they were greatly startled by a scrunch of feet on the gravel quite close to them. There was a sudden drone of voices which told them that two men were quickly approaching the spot on which they stood. Indeed they had barely time to put out the light of the lantern and to crouch close under the shadow of the huge wall of the prison before the men passed them.

They came so near that they almost touched Anne and Gervase as they knelt. They heard the men open the door through which they had just come, and as it swung back, so close were Anne and Gervase to it that it concealed them behind it.

The sudden flash of the light that one of the men carried was very terrifying.

“Wake up, Nick.” The rough voice the other side of the door was so loud in the ears of the fugitives that they held their breaths. “Wake up, Nick.” They heard the man grunt as he gave a vigorous shake to the turnkey, who was still snoring tremendously. “What a devil you are for sleeping and drinking! Master Norris the headsman is here and would have a few words with the condemned.”

A perfect tornado of shakes accompanied the words, which yielded presently to a series of kicks. Evidently the business of arousing the turnkey was to prove no light one.

“Wake, you drunken fool. Here is Master Norris the headsman, don’t you hear? Are you going to keep us here all day?”

Hardly daring to draw breath, Anne and Gervase continued to kneel close behind the open door. Their terror and their peril suddenly made Anne desperate. Not daring to speak, she plucked her companion’s sleeve; and then putting all to the touch and keeping close under the shadow of the wall, she started to creep away on hands and knees from this position of imminent danger. Even by the time they had made a distance of fifty yards in this painful fashion, and had set a buttress of the Castle between them and the open door, they could still hear the indignant voice of him who had laid upon himself the task of rousing the sleeping jailer.

They could breathe a little now. But their position was still one of very great peril. The whole place seemed to be astir. Men and lights were moving in all directions. Voices of soldiers, workmen and servants of the Castle were all about them. As yet there was not a single fleck of the dawn to be seen, but already the birds had begun their early notes. Daybreak must be very near.

Not for an instant must they stay in the place they were now in. Even as they knelt close by the wall they expected to hear the startled outcry that would announce the escape of the condemned man.

CHAPTER VII

THEY had only one hope of getting free. By some means they must cross the open courtyard, and creep round to the Castle gate before the coming dawn had time to reveal them.

On hands and knees they made for the open. With no longer the shadow of the Castle walls to conceal them, their peril was greatly increased. More than once they stopped and lay full length on the ground, so near they were to discovery. It seemed as if they would never be able to get to the point they had fixed upon, which was the precarious shelter of a few stunted shrubs growing near to the Castle gate.

It was a long while before they could reach that security. Not long perhaps in point of fact but an age in experience. Each time they lay down on the hard cobblestones to avoid some new danger they expected the dread proclamation to ring in their ears. It seemed little short of a miracle, such was their exaggeration of events, that the escape was not known already.

At last they were come to the place they sought, hard by the gate. And here it was that the Providence which thus far had used them so well seemed now to desert them. To their horror they realized that the east was already light. The only hope of getting clear had been to slip unseen through the gate at a moment it might chance to be open for the admission of others. But from the first they had known that daylight would make the risk too great to admit of any such expedient.

They must find some other way. Yet Anne well knew there was no other way. The Castle was surrounded by walls it was impossible to scale, except on the south side. Here the parapet was low, and for a sufficient reason. Beyond the south wall the Castle rock ended abruptly. A terrible chasm, hundreds of feet in depth, lurked beneath.

They had soon decided that the gate could not avail them now. Thus they crept away to the left in the direction of the south wall, taking cover as they went beneath a row of laurel-bushes. But no sooner had they reached the wall than they saw, even in the gray twilight, that it was certain death to climb it and hazard a descent of the sheer precipice on the farther side. What could they do? Every moment it was growing lighter.

By now Gervase had shaken off his lethargy. One who has lain weeks in a prison and has composed himself for death can hardly be expected to take occasion by the hand. But the fine and keen air of the morning and the almost miraculous chance of life that had been given him had done much to restore his numbed faculties. A resolve had already been born in his heart to sell his life very dearly. In the last resort he was determined to attempt the almost impassable face of the cliff.

But there was his brave companion. She seemed to read his mind. And reading it she summoned the courage of despair. “If there is no other way we will crawl down the rock,” she said.

“It would be death, mistress.”